Learning From Comparative Public Policy

Step 9

Increasing chances of success

Conserve energy. Don't try harder; try better.

Office poster

Since the record of every government is a combination of successes and failures, lesson-drawing has two faces: it is about learning ways to make programmes better and about learning how to avoid measures resulting in failure. A simplistic approach to policy transfer ignores the distinction between positive and negative learning; prudent policymakers do not. Understanding the reasons why a programme has been tried and has failed elsewhere is a form of preventive policymaking: it can inoculate a government against making an avoidable mistake.

Because policymakers are activists, drawing positive lessons is a bigger priority than learning what not ...